Not particularly significant...

[ssa_dr_reid]

 I find this to be elegantly tragic. I really, really hope that when we finally have a manned mission to Mars, Spirit will get to be properly retired.

Comments

[shut_up_wesley]

In my time, most of the early rovers from the first missions were recovered and are now in a museum in Copernicus City...that's the moon.I spent a lot of time there as a kid when I was visiting my grandmother.

[ssa_dr_reid]

Your grandmother lived (will live?) on the moon?

[shut_up_wesley]

Yeah! There's whole sustained biospheres there now. My mother was born there, actually.

[ssa_dr_reid]

Your mother was born on the moon...

You have the most interesting life story I have ever heard. Which is saying something, considering the people I've met.

[prince_prat]

Mars?

[ssa_dr_reid]

Yes, Mars. You know, the fourth planet from the sun?

[prince_prat]

No, I don't know. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked.

[ssa_dr_reid]

Oh, I'm sorry.? Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the Spirit rover has been collecting samples and data there for the past few years.

[redfive_exe]

man...

I would totally go up there and fix it if it wouldn't like...screw with the natural order of things or something.

[ssa_dr_reid]

Excuse me, go there? How?

[redfive_exe]

Temporal magics. Umm...I'm gonna guess by your reaction that you're not one of the people around here that's from someplace with actual wizards.

[ssa_dr_reid]

No, I'm not. The only wizards I've encountered were in books, and the only magic I know is slight-of-hand.

[onlynewlife]

Maybe I'm kinda dumb, but I don't really get it. Isn't Spirit, like, a machine...? If it's doing a good job, maybe NASA's just going with the don't fix it if it ain't broke theory?

[ssa_dr_reid]

It's not broken, it's just stuck. Really, it's been working for far longer than NASA thought it would. It's a single piece of something man-made, on a planet that won't see a human being for at least another decade. I know I'm romanticizing it, but it just seems lonely.

[onlynewlife]

I mean...that's why they're still using it. Because it's not broken. If it's actually literally stuck, though, someone ought to move it again, I agree. ...you're kind of adorable but you should really get out more, Spence ;) I don't think Spirit minds as much as the comic would suggest.

[ssa_dr_reid]

Adorable?

I know Spirit is not sentient; I meant metaphorically lonely, since there's nothing sentient on that planet.

And you're the second person to ever call me Spence.

[a_hat_trick]

I can see how that'd be sad. It may be a machine, but hey, I've seen Terminator, no one knows when we're making the machine with feelings and minds of their own. Poor little guy. Don't suppose you've seen Wall-E?

[ssa_dr_reid]

Artificial sentience is still only a theory, and not a very solid one at that. I have seen Wall-E; it is a remarkable movie. I watched it with a four-year-old, and despite the lack of dialog for the first half, he was entranced.

[a_hat_trick]

Ah, you forget that you're in a place where plenty are out of their time. It's still just a theory for you. Maybe, for others here, it isn't so far off.

Seriously, I've got to get one of those kid people.

[ssa_dr_reid]

True, I'm not quite used to that idea yet. You're right; it's just a theory for me. I assume you're time-displaced then?

That sounds like something Garcia would say. At times, children can be pretty pleasant. Particularly the one in question.